Zita Holbourne

Zita is an award winning, author, poet, writer, visual artist, curator and community and trade union activist.She is national vice president of PCS Union, and National Chair and co-founder of Black Activists Rising Against Cuts (BARAC) UK.

If All the People Voted for the Many Not the Few

They'd force politicians to sit up and take note The number of young people who didn't vote at allOutnumbered those voting last election in total

If all the people who said "I don't do politics"Joined the "all politicians are the same" cynics They could hold our political future in their handsAnd influence on June 8th what happens in these lands

If all those who said they like Jeremy Corbyn

But they don't think he can win so they won't be voting Used their vote and voted for Labour he would win If all who won't vote Labour 'cos they don't like him

Voted on policies not his personality We could make stopping cuts a reality We could save the NHS, reduce inequality Lift those struggling to survive out of poverty

End zero hour contracts and earn a living wageStop disadvantage based on gender, race and age Disability and sexual orientation Make a stand against exploitation

Or neglect of the most vulnerable people Build a society that's more just and equal Invest in social and affordable homes

Get paid a living wage, not turn to payday loans

Renationalise energy and Royal Mail End the privatisation of buses and rail Reverse welfare reforms like the bedroom tax And to University tuition fees give the axe

Make education free not a privilege for the rich Kick draconian Tory policies in the ditch Halt cuts to jobs, services and communities That are destroying lives, made with impunity

Stop austerity measures that are ideological Reject the myths and lies that they're economical If all the people who even though they know full wellThese Tory cuts assign them to a living hell

But still in vox pops and polls, when asked will say "I'm voting Tory cos I like Theresa May" Would see that's just like turkeys voting for ChristmasIt makes no sense at all, it's just ridiculous

If all those who say they're voting for May "because she's strong"Would stop to realise you can be strong and wrong That gentle and peaceful doesn't equal weak That being real and caring doesn't make you a freak

If all the people voting on how you look not what you do Looked at voting records rather than each leader's shoes They'd see that Corbyn's stood up for us from time That for decades of time he's had your back and mine

In communities not just in Parliament

He's meant what he said, said what he meantJoining rallies and vigils for justice and peace Stood on picket lines and protested on the streets

If elected Labour will invest in schools and education - An old African proverb gives Corbyn inspiration"It takes a village to raise a child" he says -EMA and free school meals because it pays

To invest in the lives and futures of our children This is what it's all about, the next generationIf all the people who say they won't vote, voted Labour Encouraged their friend, colleague and neighbour

We could change the future life chances of young people Build a society that's safe and is stable Protect our rights and defend communities Focus on building trust and hope and unity

If all the people who say "I don't really know"Take the time to read the Labour manifesto The undecided could be the people who decide And together with those who "don't vote" turn the tide

If all those who don't, decided now that they will We could move forward rather than standing stillJust imagine how empowered we could be If we stopped thinking I and thought of we

Architecture

Jean Turner looks at the dramatic changes that took place in architecture following the Bolshevik Revolution, and the profound influence this had on the development of the world's first workers' state. In the nineteenth century, as in all the other arts, Russians were examining new forms of expression in architecture,…

'A model of clear thinking and informed comment' - Nick Wright reviews the Imagine Moscow exhibition at the Design Museum. “The position is this: the ecstatic period of the revolution is over. Now it's the working day — but art is holiday. And we want art back, the new art…

Fiction

Dennis Broe reports on the crime novelists' festival at Quais du Polar in Lyon, France. This is Bro on the World Literary Beat and I’ve just come back from this year’s Quais du Polar in Lyon France, one of the world’s largest gathering of crime novelists – in France crime novels…

John Ellison offers an appreciation of 'News from Nowhere', by William Morris. Opening salvo There can be no denying that the content of News from Nowhere, the utopian romance penned by painter, poet and designer William Morris, was heavily indebted to the writings of Karl Marx. Morris was exploring these…

Films

Dennis Broe's final report on the hyperspectacle which is Cannes 2018. I would like to begin this Cannes Festival wrap up with the opening of At War, a film about the immolation of the French working class, which is an apt quote from Bertolt Brecht for these media-induced apathetic times: “It’s…

Dennis Broe reports back from Cannes 2018. There are three big stories at the festival and in each the work of the artists, the film directors featured at Cannes, is countering or deepening the official story. The first is the MeToo anti-harassing and women’s rights campaign which two extraordinary films,…

Theatre

Jenny Farrell outlines a Marxist reading of Shakespeare, and illustrates it with an analysis of Shakespeare's King Lear. Among Marxism’s core insights is that all history since the end of the primitive society has been a history of class societies and class struggle. Art does not arise in a vacuum; it…

Ross Bradshaw reviews a recent play at the Nottingham Playhouse about the 1984 Miners' Strike. Wonderland, written by Beth Steel, was the first play of the new artistic director at Nottingham Playhouse, Adam Penford. It ended with a full house and an almost completely standing ovation. It was, I gather, not the first…

Music

The Bread and Roses Songwriting and Spoken Word Award was launched by the Communication Workers Union (CWU) and Culture Matters in November 2017. It closed in February 2018. The aim of the new Award was to encourage songwriters and spoken word performers to write material meaningful to working class people…

On the 120th anniversary of Paul Robeson's birth, Jenny Farrell tells the story of his life. "The artist must take sides. He must elect to fight for freedom or slavery. I have made my choice. I had no alternative." - Paul Robeson at a rally in London’s Albert Hall on…

Poetry

To My Wife, from an Israeli Gaol by Chris Norris 'She kept saying: “You have to go. You have to go”', recalled one aunt, Ahlam, 30. ‘She was the most dedicated of all of us.’ Wesal, 14, was shot dead on Monday, one of more than 60 people killed as…

Let Me Tell You About Them by Kevin Higgins The teenagers we shot yesterdaywere shot responsibly through the eyewith plain-speaking dum-dum bullets, manufactured in Fife, or taken down with SR 25 sniper rifles flownheroically in from Orange County.Many of these so-called protestorsspecifically arranged to be shot in the back, just…

Visual Arts

Sanjiv Sachdev reviews Another Kind of Life, Photography on the Margins at the Barbican Art Gallery. Photographer Mary Ellen Mark’s comment that she is “…interested in people who aren’t the lucky ones, who maybe have a tougher time surviving, and telling their story” could be the motif for this entire exhibition.…

John Green introduces some Karl Marx bicentenary cartoons and caricatures. 5 May 2018 marks the bicentenary of the birth of Karl Marx. To commemorate this the Ken Sprague Fund organised an international cartoon and caricature competition which drew over 150 entries from artists around the world. Ken Sprague was one…